Coffee Chronicles: 'New York's Best Coffee' iPhone App

Or, There's a Capp For That.

To stay on coffee's cutting edge, and because modernity requires us to never have to remember anything for ourselves again, there's now an app for locating the best quality-focused NYC cafe near where you are right now. Or where you're going later. Or if you like to drop in on roasteries, too.

Derek Lamberton and Blue Crow Media released the New York's Best Coffee (for iPhone only) app this past weekend, and for a whopping $0.99, you can now triangulate all your city movements between perfect espressos and filter coffees. And if you're the kind of coffee drinker (i.e., snob) who decides whether to give a shop a try based on whose beans, and on what kind of equipment they brew it, rest assured: NYBC has logged all that data for you without you ever even having to crack open the door open and take a furtive peek behind the barista. (You'll know in advance, for instance, that Kaffe 1668 uses beans from PTs, Plowshares, Ecco Caffè and Counter Culture, among others, and brews their espresso on a Synesso.)

It's a simple app that does what it should: winnow out the gems in a landscape of blue-cupped deli swill in a city with overwhelming selection. Don't like what you see? Don't worry—your next delicious choice is may be only .24 miles away.

About the author: Liz Clayton drinks, photographs and writes about coffee and tea all over the world, though she pretends to live in Brooklyn, New York. She is the creator of Nice Coffee Time, a book of photographs of the best coffee in the world, published by Presspop, is the New York City correspondent for Sprudge.com, and contributes to other outfits worldwide.